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By Skip Thompson. Scholarpedia 2(3):2367, 2007; DOI 10.4249/scholarpedia.2367. Publication year is distinguished from later online revisions.

Cited passages: opening definition and equation (1); Initial History Function; Derivative Discontinuities. Relevant text was inspected through indexed Scholarpedia results when the direct page was unavailable.

Skip Thompson is a mathematician whose work includes the numerical solution of delay differential equations. His authored account explains equations in which the present rate of change depends on earlier values of the solution, with applications including population dynamics and epidemiology.^[ref] For example, $y^{\prime }(t)=-ay(t-\tau )$ with $\tau >0$ requires an initial history on $[-\tau ,0]$, rather than only one initial value. A numerical method must therefore approximate and retrieve past values as integration proceeds. Delayed feedback can also create oscillations that are absent from a corresponding equation without delay.

A mathematician.^[ref]